General Information

The Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities was founded in 1998 to create an intellectual center for our city by bringing together academics and writers, musicians and dancers, curators and critics, journalists and poets. The Institute's broad purpose is to stimulate a cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas. The bimonthly lunches for fellows explore many of the social, scientific and cultural ideas of the day with a greater variety of experience and intellectual outlook gathered in one room than any given Fellow is likely to experience in the course of his or her daily life.

The Institute aims to be international, urban and inclusive in its outlook, avoiding viewpoints predictably to the right or left. It seeks to integrate intellectual life with the active civic life of the city, as well as to reflect the diversity that is so palpably a hallmark of Southern California as it continues through the twenty-first century.

We host events both on the USC campus and off-campus for Institute Fellows and their guests. All fellows receive updates and reminders via email. We also host periodic symposia that are open to the public.